Sean Stein Smith, from a very young age, has been fascinated with money— where it went, how it worked, what it did. As a child, games of Monopoly set him on the track to earning both a CPA license and an M.B.A. degree, which he eventually leveraged into a career as a financial analyst, first at Suez (formerly Suez Environmental) and later with Hackensack Meridian Health. Despite his enjoyment of the work, however, he felt that something was missing. 

“I always wanted an opportunity to talk about [accounting], to really drive home and emphasize how important it is to finance, and so, after some thought, I figured trying out the higher education route would give me that platform to highlight these issues, both with peers and with future members of the profession,” he said. 

This was the mindset that motivated Stein Smith’s shift into academia, starting with a doctorate in business administration (D.B.A.) and an assistant professor position at Rutgers University. In 2017, he landed at New York’s Lehman College in the Bronx, part of the City University of New York. He is currently an assistant professor in Lehman’s Department of Economics and Business—the largest department at the college, with 1,400 undergraduate majors. There, he gets to use his passion for accounting and financial services to make a real impact on the next generation of CPAs and, ultimately, elevate the profession as a whole. 

As a professor, Stein Smith aims to prepare his students for the accounting profession as it exists today, which has increasingly meant integrating technology topics with the typical tax and audit instruction. During the fall 2021 semester, he is teaching (remotely) Intermediate Accounting I, Advanced Accounting Problems, and the first-ever crypto-focused course at Lehman College. Other crypto and blockchain courses have been approved, and will be offered in coming semesters. He noted that there’s a lot of buzz around these technologies, as well as with artificial intelligence (AI), but also a lot of ambiguity as to what these things mean for the profession. Stein Smith said he tries to bridge this understanding through real-life examples for his students. 

“For example, if we do a chapter on inventory or on merchandise, I’ll say, ‘Well, how can a blockchainlike platform or technology help a company better manage its inventory, reorder quantities, that sort of thing?’ So I try to weave it in with the course content to make sure students understand the tool and how it can be used,” he said

It’s important for CPAs to recognize that the economy is increasingly “customized, personalized and on-demand,” said Stein Smith—citing streaming services and shopping apps as examples—and the CPA profession cannot think that it will be the exception. Pointing to the rising demand 

for continuous real-time reporting and assurance, he said that today’s accountant must learn to embrace every tool available, from blockchain to automation to data analytics to AI. 

Late last year, Stein Smith founded the Institute for Blockchain & Cryptoasset Research, which, he said, will operate like a think tank, producing policy papers as a way to create a comprehensive home to research on these topics. He noted that there’s a lot of talk about them in many different industries, but most of the discourse remains siloed in their own separate areas. 

The institute is, however, independent of Lehman College. “I’m currently assembling a board of advisers for the institute to try to bring those different workstreams into one spot, to ultimately have an impact on the broader blockchain policy conversation,” he explained. 

While Stein Smith acknowledged that the CPA Evolution initiative—a joint effort of the AICPA and the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA) that will change the CPA licensure model to include technology topics—might present a difficult transition, he said that it was necessary, if the profession expects to successfully adapt to the changing economy. 

“There are going to be specific tasks and processes and controls and ideas that, frankly, aren’t going to be needed anymore as automation picks up steam. Doing bank reconciliations and accounting reconciliations are some of those processes that are not going to be as widespread or as necessary,” he said.

Because the Lehman College campus has been closed since last spring due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Stein Smith, like many other professors, has shifted to distance learning for the time being, teaching his classes on regular days and times via live Zoom sessions. This process has required some adjustment—for example, class participation takes place on discussion boards—but, for the most part, he proceeded as planned with tests, homework, written assignments and discussion. 

“Basically, I am trying to conduct my instruction and classes as ‘usual,’ while fully understanding that these are not normal times,” he said, adding that as the Lehman Technology Fellow during the spring 2020 semester, he also provided assistance to colleagues in making the leap to online learning. 

An aerial shot of Carman Hall at Lehman College in the Bronx, where Sean Stein Smith taught, pre-pandemic.

But Stein Smith’s advocacy and education efforts were never limited to the college campus. He is the author of not only over a dozen peer-reviewed papers, but also three books and countless other articles in publications such as Inc., Accounting Today, The CPA Journal, the Journal of Accountancy and NJBIZ. Beyond this, he recently became a Forbes contributor, writing about cryptocurrency and blockchain. He was recently named as a recipient of a CPA Practice Advisor’s 40 Under 40 award. These awards “spotlight the top practicing public accountants, educators and thought leaders who are leading their profession by visibly and incrementally changing the accounting profession through their exemplary leadership, their innovative thinking, their collaborative efforts to provide unity to the profession across the generations, and their community outreach which extends the visibility of the profession outside the workplace.” 

Stein Smith has also made numerous media appearances, often speaking on topics pertaining to accounting and technology, and is very active on social media. 

For young CPAs who want to expand their media profiles, Stein Smith recommended being aware of opportunities and how they can build upon each other. Talking to other CPAs about personal finance led to his writing about the topic, which then led to his being asked to do videos on the same subject. Those videos led to even more opportunities on other platforms, including a recent talk before the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB). He also advised young professionals not to be shy about reaching out to editors and producers, offering oneself as an expert on a particular topic, such as blockchain or sustainability. 

Stein Smith acknowledged that, for certain people, this prospect can be nerve-racking, especially if they’re not used to putting their thoughts out in public. He said that it’s generally not as bad or difficult as people might initially think, noting that most of his video segments are only three to five minutes long. He added that most interviewers are trying more to have a good conversation than to make their subjects look foolish. Essentially, they’ll want you to be there because they believe you know something that they don’t. 

“If you’re asked to be on a podcast or on a TV show or to write an article, ... you are the most knowledgeable person in the room, and they would not have asked you to be on if they did not think you were an expert or knowledgeable in this area,” he said. 

He also added, however, that a thick skin helps, as it’s almost inevitable that someone in the audience is going to misinterpret or disagree with you. 

Sean Stein Smith presents at an AICPA seminar on blockchain fundamentals.

This increased media exposure, said Stein Smith, has been very good for his career, specifically in establishing himself as a thought leader within the profession. He said that he’s now at the point where people are recognizing him at conferences and events, saying that they know him from something he posted on Twitter or from a recent interview. This has allowed him to further his advocacy of the direction in which he feels the profession needs to go. 

“I do think, right now, the CPA field is really at a pivot point because tax and audit are obviously very important things, fundamental to how things operate, but more and more, going forward, those sort of core tasks are being automated or being done by individuals who don’t always have a CPA license,” he explained. “So to keep up and make sure our value-add is well known, it is imperative to actually be out there and make sure our current clients—and our future clients— are aware of all the value and expertise we have.” 

Stein Smith has noticed that his students are picking up on this as well. While the majority of his students still intend to pursue the traditional public accounting or industry routes, he said that he’s seeing a rising number of students who are pursuing their CPA licenses in order to become entrepreneurs or to bolster a business that they already manage. He found this to be a positive development overall, as it indicates the true flexibility of a CPA license. 

“There are so many options out there for a person who has a CPA license [because of] the knowledge that license implies, [such as] law enforcement, economic analysis, policy [work], higher education,” he said. “There is a whole range of careers and options that I really wish more people and students were aware of.”